Posts Tagged ‘sale’

Good morning, Squiders! The Short of It: Speculative Short Stories is now live and available to buy on Kindle. In celebration, I’ve also got Hidden Worlds, Shards, and City of Hope and Ruin on sale for a dollar!

You can pick it up here! (Just a reminder that I’m trying KDP Select out on it, so for the moment, it’s only available on Amazon.)

The Short of It includes five short stories:

“Time Management” (science fiction)

“Doomsday” (science fiction)

“The Knight in the Lobby” (fantasy)

“The Door in the Attic” (horror)

“To the Waters and the Wild” (magical realism)

And if you want to grab the rest of my books at 20-33% of their normal price:

Shards(Urban fantasy) – Eva Martinez just wants to figure out what to do with her life. Instead she gets embroiled in a millennia-old conflict.

City of Hope and Ruin(High fantasy) – Theo’s City is infested with monsters, with nowhere to ruin. Briony’s home is threatened by the mutilated Scarred from the North. Their only salvation may be each other.

We talked in May and June about an older novel of mine, Shards, which came out in December of 2013, and how I suspected my book description for it was doing a terrible job of selling it due to a mismatch between the description and the actual contents of the book.

And then we talked about how long it was actually taking me to re-write the description. But I am pleased to say that I am done, I have the go-ahead from the lovely people helping me re-write it, and that it has gone live on Amazon and Smashwords, and I assume will trickle out to the other distributors in the near future.

(I also have changed the keywords on everything, and some of my categories. We’ll see how that goes.)

(Also, apparently if you change the description on Smashwords, but not any of the actual content, it still reconverts everything, and you have to reapply to premium distribution. Which is ridiculous. I didn’t touch the book itself!)

Now to see if 1) this improves sales at all, and 2) if this improves review quality, since readers should go into the book with a better idea of what they’re getting.

But I thought you guys might like to see the change. So I present, without further ado, the original description, and then we’ll do the new description.

Original:

Eva Martinez isn’t sure why she’s pursuing a master’s degree in religious studies, except that something about the material resonates in the depths of her soul. But when her dreams start to be invaded by lost gardens, forbidden fruit, and a strangely familiar mystery man, even she has to wonder if she’s taking her schoolwork too seriously.

Then Eva starts to notice the strangeness seeping into everyday life. The man from her dreams is real and Eva feels a curious connection with him. Her classmate, someone she’s known for years, starts to act increasingly volatile. And it seems like everyone, including her bosses, is keeping secrets…secrets that have something to do with her. Eva’s determined to find out what’s going on, how it involves her, and why she’s transforming into someone buried deep in her memories.

The deeper in that Eva gets, the more she feels like she should understand what’s happening around her. The secrets conceal real dangers, and if she can’t untangle them and find the truth in time, she–and all those she’s come to care for–will face defeat at the hands of an ancient enemy, one who recognized Eva long before she learned to recognize herself.

New:

Every night, Eva Martinez dreams about the same man. During the day she tries to convince her mother she knows what she’s doing with her life—but it would help if Eva actually believed it.

It’s been centuries since Michael has had a real reason to live. After the loss of his love, nothing keeps his interest for very long—not even his friends, dabbling at being human.

When Eva and Michael meet, it awakens something in both of them. Eva’s dream-man-turned-real completes her in ways she’s never thought possible, and Michael feels his fire start to return.

But Michael’s kind—angels—are forbidden to join with humans. And Eva has attracted the attention of Michael’s ancient enemy—the one who took his first love from him. He couldn’t protect her, so he’s determined not to let the same fate befall Eva. But can their relationship survive all he’s not telling her?

Ta-da! Now we wait and watch, and see what comes of this all. Also, just a reminder that Shards is on sale for $1 at Smashwords through the 31st, and Hidden Worlds is free.

First of all, Squiders, if you haven’t taken advantage of the Turtleduck Press sale (also featuring my Shards and Hidden Worlds and several anthologies I have stories in, including our newest, Under Her Protection) you have a few hours before the prices go back up! GO GO GO

Happy October! My favorite of months, which I have probably mentioned before, not just because it has both my birthday and Halloween in it. It’s fall and sweaters and cocoa and the promise of holidays and family in the near future. It’s brilliant trees and warm winds. It’s cookies and spices and blankets.

Anyway! What have I been up to lately?

I have a secret project I’m working on that shall go live on my birthday (which is October 12) which is both exciting and kind of scary.

I’m finally getting deep into the secrets of my serial story, which is exciting. It turns out, when you tell a story month by month, that it takes a long time to complete. My serial story will have been going for five years come January.

Editing on my paranormal YA novel continues, though at a slower pace than I would like. I’m about 50K in, but it’s looking like it will be 85-90K in the end. Ideally it will get done before November. Not sure what to do if it doesn’t, as I’m not sure trying to write a novel and edit one at the same time will go well at all.

I’ve been exploring story structures. This is something that I think many people pick up through trial and error and work through instinctively, and I feel like it will be in my best interest to have more conscious control process for it.

I’ve decided to do the first book of my scifi series for Nano, which shall be exciting. I’ve got the worldbuilding mostly done, but I need to do character work (ethnicies, last names, basic personalities), plot work, and decide on structure. I’m unsure how many point of views will be ideal as of yet, and unsure as to who to use. There will be eight “main” crewmembers, which is too much for a single novel. Best to do a single viewpoint per novel, or a few? Questions to be answered. I’m hoping that, as I expand the plot, it will become obvious who and how many to use.

There is a constant stream of short stories being written, edited, and submitted. It’s kind of hard to keep track of them all.

Anyway, I drew you guys a landsquid but then realized that I was at a coffee shop with no scanner, so you shall have to come back on Thursday for that particular brand of madness.

So, exciting news, science fiction and fantasy lovers! Turtleduck Press is having a sale for the next week, and the ebook version of everything–all their anthologies, novels, and chapbooks–is only 99 cents! This includes both Shards and Hidden Worlds, as well as our newest anthology (which I have a story called Drifting in) Under Her Protection: Stories of Women to the Rescue.

Here’s a quick rundown of what you can get:

If you like poetry, check out Erin Zarro’s Life as a Moving Target and Without Wings. The first is a collection of poems about dealing with life with fibromyalgia, and the second is about love gone wrong and is my favorite ever.

Definitely a little something for everyone, so grab the books now while they’re cheap! Because, alas, on October 8 all the prices go back up. So buy some for yourself, buy some for your friends, buy some for your dog–sorry. Got carried away.